


All That We Are.

by Miss_Missing_You



Series: Calliope Danvers [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Angst, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Mutual Pining, One Shot Collection, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sharing a Bed, Swearing, Underage Drinking, and also super depressed, but one of them's not ready, drinking tw, like they both know they're in love, so they're not officially anything
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-03-04 22:45:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13374651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Missing_You/pseuds/Miss_Missing_You
Summary: In years to come the Capital Wasteland will call their saviour many things.  Beautiful, terrible, a saint, a mercenary, the hero they needed, just a girl.  But most of all alive.  Calliope Danvers is nineteen when she sacrifices herself for the new world.  She wakes up at twenty skinnier, paler but alive and that's enough.  Their saviour strides through the wasteland with her right hand man unable to take his eyes off her.  Almost as though he worries that if he looks away she'll die again.  Maybe she will.  Calliope Danvers saved the wasteland, but she also lost her family, her home and her self.  The woman that wakes up is not the girl who died and maybe that's not a bad thing.Or the one in which the wasteland wants a legend, Calliope wants a life and Butch reminds her she's allowed one.





	1. The One Where She Wakes Up.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all,  
> This is a collection of ficlets (?) about my lone wanderer Calliope Danvers and her life after project purity. I hope you enjoy it. Please leave a comment or kudos if you like it.  
> Thank you.

“That kid you saved from Greyditch has started following me around.  I guess I’m the closest thing there is to you, or something.”

“I think Gob hates me.  Probably blames me for this.  Asshole’s probably never tried to talk you out of something.  But then again I could’ve fought harder for you.  Doesn’t matter now, does it?  Just means he charges me more than the others.”

“They’ve got a memorial to you in Rivet City.  There’s a drawing one of ‘em did of you.  S’okay.  I told ‘em to talk it down.  That you don’t like that shit.”

“I’m sorry, I missed your birthday.  Twenty now, huh? How weirds that?  I was up at the temple checking in on those guys.  They like hearing about you.”

*

_“We haven't heard squat about our old pal from Vault 101 for two months now, and it's been looking pretty grim.”_

She feels sick.  It's the first thing Calliope registers.  Without opening her eyes she sits up, leans to what she thinks is her left and vomits.  It's painful and bitter.  There's nothing in her stomach so all that comes up is acid.  Then there's noise, but she just ignores it.  She lies back down and waits.  Someone is in the room with her, speaking.  But Calliope isn't registering a word their saying.  There are two cold fingers touching her wrist, checking her pulse.  A relieved sigh comes when the fact she's alive is confirmed.

"Calliope, are you awake?" The voice is soft and feminine.  For a second Calliope thinks she might answer, she tries to open her mouth, but she's tired.  So fucking tired.  The world goes black. Again.

*

The white noise irritates her.  The hum of machinery reminds her of vaults.  It makes her throat close and breathing hard.  Her fingers try to dig into her palms but they're too weak.  Instead she opens her eyes. Trying to ground herself outside the vault.  But the walls she imagines are white and clinical.  Now she's panicking because her body is too heavy to move and the ceiling she is staring looks like a vault.  And the humming is getting louder.  And the air tastes stale.  She wants to scream but the sound won't come out.  Instead she lies there, focusing on the sensation of breathing because the fact she's doing so is amazing.  For a while all she can feel is the rhythmic in and out of her breath.  Her chest expands with the air then retreats back to its normal size.  But then she hears the door open.  They don't sound like vault doors, they swing on rusty hinges.  Calliope knows where she is.  The Citadel, the brotherhood are the ones nursing her back to health.  There’s a retched feeling in her stomach that it’s wrong.  _It_ being the fact that she’s alive.  She’s meant to be dead.  The retched feeling bubbles up and burns the back of throat.  Her eyes remain closed as she leans over and vomits off the side where ever she’s lying.  Somewhere past her head a woman sighs.  A beep and then,

“Someone send a bucket and mop down to Danver’s room.  We’ve had an accident.”

Calliope groans, rolling on to her back.  She hears to door swing open and the clang of a mop against a bucket as someone rushes in to clean up her mess.  Slowly she tries to gather her voice and apologise but there’s the short stab of a needle in her arm and the words die in her throat.

*

“… I checked in on Bigtown.  They seem good, all the better for meeting you I guess.  Ain’t we all…”

It’s Butch’s voice.  Calliope can feel his hand holding hers, stroking the back of it with his thumb.  There’s a sharp cough from the direction of the door.  A something – a chair she thinks – scrapes across the floor and the warmth of Butch’s hand leaves hers.  She tries to reach for it but her arm is lead.

“Time for me to go already Doc?  But I ain’t even told her half my stories.  She likes stories.”  There’s an almost laugh in his voice.  Even with her eyes closed Calliope can imagine the exact way he shrugged.  The small smile playing around his lips.

“Yes, Butch.  Time to go.”  It’s the same woman that’s always around.

“You gonna do those tests?  Can’t I just stay with her?”

“No.”

“Fine Doc, I’ll go.  But she’s getting better right?”  Calliope wishes she could open her eyes, that she could reach out to him.  But she can’t.  It’s like she’s trapped in her mind.

“I don’t know Butch.  I don’t know.”  The doctor’s voice falters a little.  It’s silent apart from the sound of Butch’s heavy footsteps followed by the swing of the door.  There’s a beat and then Calliope hears a new voice,

“You okay Ma’am?”

“Fine, scribe.  Hand me the needle, let’s see if anything has changed.”

*

The walls are as white and clinical as she’d imagined.  But it doesn’t look like a vault.  Somehow that comforts Calliope the first time her eyes open.  Her room is silent apart from the humming of a generator.  Slowly she lifts her arms and rubs her eyes.  Just that small act amazes her.  Her arms are moving, her eyes are open, she hasn’t thrown up yet.  Next up sitting.  She uses her arms to push herself up and into a position where her legs hang of the side.  When she looks down her body her skin is paler than she’s ever seen it.  There’s a cold grey tinge to her brown skin.  All she’s wearing is her underwear, a t-shirt and an IV drip going in the back of her right hand.  The tubing twists around her arm, leading to a pouch of fluid handing up behind her.  Reaching up her left hand she brushes it over her head.  Before she had walked into the water purifier her hair, even with its tight coils, it sat on her shoulders, reaching just past it.  Now it was shorn short and her head felt colder.  It also hurts.  In fact it hurts like a bitch.  It feels as though someone is drilling a hole through her temple.  Of course that is to be expected.  Calliope was thirteen when she read most of her father’s medical books – She’d been caught by Officer Mack reading “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” in the a hallway near the generator and had been banned from taking books from the classroom for a period – and she knows what to expect from radiation poisoning.  But then again she expected death and that’s not quite what she got.

“You’re up.”  It’s the familiar voice of the doctor, Calliope had been too focused on the headache to notice the doors opening.

“I guess.”  Her voice is raw.

The doctor nods sharply and strides towards her.  First she checks the bag of fluid that’s connected to Calliope’s arm.  Then she begins the tests.  They vary.  Calliope’s temperature is taken, her reflexes measure, her throat prodded a torch is shined in her eyed.  After what feels like a hundred tests the doctor steps back, surveying Calliope as a whole.  A clinical smile is plastered across the doctor’s face. 

“I’m Doctor Collier,” the Doctor says.  She looks like what Calliope imagines her mother did.  Coiled hair a shade or two darker than her skin.  Underneath the stress and bags, she has kind eyes. 

“How am I alive?” Calliope replies.  All things considered she doubt that she needs to be introduced.  It’s not cocky, it’s practical.

“Luck.” Doctor Collier moves towards a desk on the other side of the room.  She rifles through the papers sitting on it, picking one out and examining it for a second.

“Where’s my stuff?”

“Where ever Mister De Loria decided to keep it I suspect.  I’m going to take some blood samples, Calliope, we are hoping they can help us cure Paladin Lyons.”

“Where’s Butch?” Calliope watches warily as Collier picks up an empty syringe from a trolley near her desk.

“He left last week, didn’t say where he was going.  He’ll likely be back soon.  Now give me you arm.”  The clinical smile on Collier’s face scares Calliope.  She’s too detached, like Calliope is still asleep on the table.  Calliope shifts on the table, moving away from the approaching syringe.  Collier’s smile wavers for a second.

“No thank you,” Calliope says, crossing her arms.  For a second she thinks Collier will take the blood anyway.  But she does not.  She just nods sharply and puts the needle back on the tray.

Clothes are brought for her.  Another stained white t-shirt, so old it’s almost yellow, a military jacket, a pair of faded jeans.  All second hand, all good enough.  They don’t fit – all of them sit too big on her starved form.  That’s what two months of no solid food or exercise will do to a person.  Even the muscles that had replaced her puppy fat in the months between leaving the vault and the purifier are gone.  Now she’s a waif.  There’s a cracked mirror in the bathroom they show her to.  In the mirror she can see the women she’s become.  Haunted, sunken eyes stare back at her.  Will anybody recognise her if she walks into Rivet City?  She hates this person staring back at her.  The person who shouldn’t be alive.  Everything in her wants to hope it’s all a dream.  That she’s going to wake up in a second in her bed in the vault.  That James is going to call her for breakfast.  They’ll walk together to the diner and get pancakes from Andy, then they’ll go their separate ways.  Him to the clinic, her to the reactor.  But in the back of her mind she knows that this is real.  A roar rips from her throat as she slams her hand against the mirror.  The cracks spread a little, hot tears gather in her eyes.  It takes a few moments but she swallows the tears down.  She splashes her faces with cold water from the tap before stepping out again.  Collier hands her some battered combat boots.  They pinch her toes but they work.

On her own she walks through the courtyard of the Citadel.  The soldiers that are training stop they are doing and watch her.  She can feel their eyes following her – taking in everything she has become.  Some of them salute her.  It puts a bad taste in her mouth.  Upon seeing the first one – a young boy who can’t be more than ten – do it she fixes her eyes a head of her.  Elder Lyons is waiting at the gate.  From here she can tell that he is tired.  She strides towards him, staring him down.  His blue eyes are sad.

“You do not wish to stay?” He says when she is next to him.

“I did my part.”  Calliope lifts her chin higher upon saying the words.

“There is more yet to be done, my girl.”

“I won’t be the one doing it.”  She nods at him, something like a thank you, as the gates rise. 

The capital is quiet as she walks through it.  No super mutants, ghouls wait to pounce on Calliope as she makes her way towards Rivet City.  It’s somewhere close to peaceful.  The sky is blue above her and she’s at exactly the wrong height so the sun shines into her eyes.  But the air is crisp.  It fills her lungs.  Finally, she’s breathing again.  Each breath feels like a prayer.  She walks.  Now she isn’t laden down with guns, armour and ammunition.  Now, in this fleeting moment, she is free. 

The bridge to Rivet City is already extended when she reaches it.  She walks across it, not scared of how vulnerable she is right now.  Harkness is waiting on the other side, guarding the entrance as he’s always done.  He squints at her a she nears.  There’s admiration in his normally blank eyes.  Calliope just spares him a smiles before opening the door into the stairwell.

Whispers follow her as she walks to the Muddy Rudder.  It’s reminiscent of the last time she walked this corridor.  Except this time she isn’t fire and death.  Or maybe to them she is.  After all that’s what has followed her since she walked out into the wasteland over a year ago.  But now there is no vengeance pushing her forward.  She isn’t an angel of death or Saint, she’s just a girl.  And yet, people don’t look directly at her, they squint as though she’s the sun.  A god who can smite them for the insult.  It sits uncomfortably in her stomach. 

Belle Bonny looks a little stunned when Calliope walks into her bar.  She quickly recovers herself, nodding to the room that has become Butch’s.

Butch isn’t there but her old pack is.  It’s exactly as it was when she handed to him before stepping into the purifier, not a thing out of place.  Her pipboy sits, switched off, beside it.  She slumps on the bed.  It’s more comfortable than the table in the Citadel.  Not that that’s particularly hard.  As she lies on the bed Calliope contemplates sleeping.  It would be so easy to close her eyes and fall asleep, probably one of the easiest things she’s ever done.  But there’s a worry in the back of her mind that she won’t wake up again. 

So she lies on the bed eyes fixed on the dark ceiling.  Her stomach begins to rumble at some point – she doesn’t know the time without her pipboy on.  Then again, does time really exist to someone who just spent two months asleep, especially when there’s nothing telling them it does?  When the twisting in her stomach becomes too much Calliope walks into the bar.  There are a few residents sitting around the rooms.  The ones that aren’t good enough for the Weatherly.  If they are surprised by Calliope they don’t show it.  Belle has the radio playing, The Ink Spots are crooning across the airwaves about maybes.  Calliope slumps down at the bar.  Her head is beginning to ache, it’s definitely not helping her mood.  Without having to be asked Belle pushes an open can of Pork ‘n’ Beans and a mug of purified water at her.  Gratefully Calliope takes the can.  It doesn’t matter that Pork ‘n’ Beans is almost as bad a cram, it’s the first food Calliope has eaten in two months. 

Calliope is still sitting at the bar when Belle tells her it’s nearly midnight.  Time for bed.  Three dog is announcing a Billie Holiday song.  Her eyes are drifting shut and Belle is looking at her in a way that could be misconstrued as motherly.  As Calliope is pushing herself off the stool the door to the bar swings open.  The bright light of the corridor floods into the dark bar, silhouetting the intruder with a halo of artificial yellow light.  He stands in the door way for a moment allowing Calliope to dissect his form.  In the past two months he has learnt to hold himself differently.  Quiet threat and confidence lace through his being.  He is a man of the wastes, from the dirt covered boots to the rifle fixed to his back. 

“Calliope,” he breathes.  Though he looks like stranger Calliope knows that voice.  She finishes getting off the chair, leaning on the bar a little for support. 

Butch stares at her, drinking her in.  She stands in front of him, lets him examine the person she’s become.  Lets him decide whether she’s enough.  Part of her is scared the person she’s become won’t be what he thought she’d be.  Relief surges through her when he lurches forwards and bundles her into a hug.  His arms squeeze her close, it’s as though he’s reassuring himself that she’s really there.  Calliope leans into the hug.  They stand there, entangled in each other, until Belle coughs loudly. 

“Go the fuck to bed,” She says, pointing them towards their room.  Butch flips her off fondly before guiding Calliope towards the door. 


	2. The One Where We Begin Again.

The morning after her dramatic return Calliope sits cross legged and alone on Butch’s bed.  He has gone to wash off the dirt he collected on his wanderings.  Unsure what to do, how to silence the buzzing in her mind, she pulls her untouched pack from the floor and begins to sort through it.

It is full of the knick-knacks collected by a young girl incapable of letting go.  A child’s wooden doll she picked up whilst sheltering from the sniper in minefield.  An empty Nuka Cola bottle, probably just shoved in there thoughtlessly.  Far too many clips for her far too many guns.  After touching them she has an urge to wash her hands. 

Slowly and methodically she divides the contents in to piles in front of her.  One for Butch – that’s where she pushes the bullets.  One for the trash and one to keep.  As she reaches the bottom of the bag the three piles sit like mountains on the bed.  The highest peak is the trash, built around that Nuka Cola bottle.  Then there’s Butch’s, a mess of clips and other stuff she doesn’t need or ever want.  The final smallest is what will return to the pack.  Two books, the one Butch gave her when he found her at Flak’s and one she took from the library, then her canteen and a purple scarf with blue polka dots.  It’s the only thing – aside from her own genes – that’s left of her parents.  As she thinks she reached the bottom of the bag her fingers brush over a material that is definitely not the coarse inside of the bag.  Instead the material is softer and breathable, she’s sure her finger bump over a print that if she traced it would make numbers. 

Butch finds her sitting on the bed.  The vault suit sits in her hands, he can see the fabric bunched between her tightly clench fingers.  Her eyes don’t move from the suit as he opens and closes the door.  Cautiously he walks towards her, it’s the same way he approaches easily spooked animals.  Like she could lash out at any moment.  Her hunting knife is next to her – in the Butch pile – maybe she could.  As he walks he takes in all the stuff lying on the bed.  His eyes wash over the wealth of supplies he’d never thought to take. 

“I want to burn it.” Calliope’s quiet voice cuts him from his inventory taking – adding the five stimpaks sitting beside her to his current supply.  It’s the first thing she’s said to him since the water purifier  They hadn’t spoken last night as he wrapped her in his arms and they fell asleep.  She hadn’t done anything other than nod when he told her he was going to the washrooms.

“What?” Is all he can reply with.

“I want to burn the vault suit.  Shove into one of those old bins, cover it in gasoline and burn it.”

“Okay,” Butch says.  He may not understand why she wants to do this but her understands that she needs to.

Calliope’s head finally rises from the suit, looking him the eye, and he can see the gratitude behind the deadness in her eyes.

*****

They walk in step off Rivet City.  The corridors are emptier now, every resident of Rivet city is either in the market place or their own rooms.  Calliope carries the vault suit, her knuckles are pale with how tightly she clutches the fabrics.  Beside her Butch walks, he keeps one arm lightly on waist and his eyes keep flicking back to her.  It’s as though he feels that if he isn’t looking she’ll disappear again.  His other hand grasps a jug of gasoline they’d convinced Harkness to let them take.  As they get off the bridge connection the boat to land, Calliope wraps the Tunnel Snake Jacket she’s wearing tighter around her body.  It’s the same one he’d given to her when she saved his mom’s life.  She had left it slung on his bed post before they’d left for Little Lamplight, both times he’d come home without her he couldn’t look at it.  Now seeing it back on her, looser than ever with the weight she’d lost, something about it feels like home more than the Vault or the Muddy Rudder ever could. 

Almost like fate, there’s a blown over trash can in the square across from the boat.  It’s all sorts of dented – a nuclear war and two hundred years seem to do that to most things.  Butch picks it up and sets it up right, it wobbles slightly but stays.  The chill wind picks up as Calliope drops the vault suit.  Crumpled at the bottom of a rusty, battered trash can is a stark difference to how it had come to Calliope.  As he pours the oil over the suit Butch thinks about how different it everything is now.  While Calliope was out he thought leaving the vault was one of the worst decisions he’d ever made, that everything was a mistake.  But here, now, with Calliope’s tiny hand sliding into his as she steps forward and tosses a lit match in the can.  As the flame catches.  He can see some of the shadows begin to leave her face.

They stand there until the fire goes out.  Butch doesn’t watch the fire.  Instead his eyes dance across Calliope’s face.  All he sees is emptiness.  Once upon a fire of her own raged in her brown eyes.  Now all that remains is ash.  Maybe the shadows that have lifted were the only thing filling her up.

Once the trash can is cold Calliope finally moves.  She drags the trash can across the square.   It scrapes loudly along the stone.  Butch watches as she tips the contents into the river, letting the Potomac wash away the past.  Then she sits.  Calliope positions herself looking towards the Jefferson Memorial.  Just barely Butch can see her mouthing words to herself.  He can’t tell what they are. If she wanted him to know she would say them out loud.

“What’s the date?” she says aloud.  Quickly Butch looks down at his Pipboy.

“August twenty-fourth 2278.”

“She would’ve been forty-nine tomorrow.”  Butch doesn’t think that’s really aimed towards him.  Calliope doesn’t even look at him as she continues speaking. “Dad buried her there.  He showed me where when we were trying to fix the purifier… before everything.”

*****

The next day Calliope wakes up early.  Not that she really slept in the first place.  Butch’s arm is draped across her, holding her to him.  The affectionate touch is the only thing that makes her feel something close to normal.  Carefully she untangles herself from him.  As she wriggles into the jeans the Brotherhood gave her the glances at Butch’s pipboy.  Six am.  She grabs a bit of charcoal and a scrap of paper from the throw out pile.  They’d moved it from the bed to the floor when they came back last night.  On the paper she scrawls a note to Butch.  Just in case he doesn’t work out where’s she’s gone.  Then she forces her feet back into the too tight boots.

Rivet city is quiet as she walks through it.  The only people up are the guards, they’re just changing shifts.  The few she walks past nod at her.  It sits weirdly on her shoulders that these people who are so much older and more experienced than her showing are showing her so much respect. 

Harkness is on the front door as she walks out.  Does he ever sleep?  He stops Calliope as she goes to cross the bridge.

“You going to be alright out there, kid?”  Calliope stares at him.  It’s a while since someone remembered that she’s just a kid.  She can feel the tears building behind her eyes, too soon.  When she doesn’t answer Harkness flicks the safety on his gun, rests it muzzle down against his leg and reaches down to his belt.  He offers her his hunting belt. 

“I don’t want it,” Calliope says.  She doesn’t want to touch anything designed to take life again.  She feels sick just think about what that knife could do.  Harkness nods, perhaps understanding the ache inside her.  He twirls the knife once and places back at his belt.

“Okay, kid.  You be safe out there.”

As Calliope crosses the bridge he hitches the gun back onto his shoulder.  The walk to the memorial feels like it takes ages.  As the cold wasteland wind picks up she pulls the tunnel snake jacket tighter around her.  It’s not designed to block out the wind but it smells like Butch and just that warms her.  The sun rises as she walks.  It paints the wasteland in pinks and purples.  Once upon a time Calliope had sat on top of one of the houses in Arefu and watched it do the same thing.  Back then it had been so beautiful.  Each new day had felt a new beginning.  Even with all she’d seen every new beginning was hope.  Now… she feels nothing but bitterness.

Brotherhood soldiers stand on guard at the memorial.  She assumes that Li is inside making sure everything is running smoothly.  One of the soldiers sees her.  His posture straightens but Calliope shakes her head at him and keeps walking to the back of the building. 

There, at the base of the memorial, are two wooden crosses.  They sit at the head of rectangle of greener grass. One is weather beaten, nineteen years have passed since it was pushed into the ground.  The other is newer.  It wasn’t there when Calliope last visited.  The new cross has no body corresponding to it.  The enclave soldiers took that too.  She wishes she’d brought flowers.  She wishes he’d brought something.  Crouching down in front of the crosses her fingers trace the letters carved into the horizontal pieces.

_Catherine Harrison-Danvers_

_James Danvers_

Both her parents reunited in death.  The tears Calliope had been pushing down finally spill over. An ache sits in her chest, right over her heart.  She misses them.  Growing up she’d wanted a mother so badly.  Dad hadn’t know what to do with her hair.  Or how to react when she and Amata had fought.  The memory of her first period flashes through her mind.  She had read all of his medical books and they had mention periods but she hadn’t really understood it.  He had awkwardly tried to explain it before handing her off to Mrs Palmer.  If she’d had a mother perhaps things would have been different.  But she loved her dad too.  She loved him so much there hadn’t really been room in her heart for anyone else.  He was her protector, her mentor, her goal.  And now they were both gone.  While she is stuck here.  She had come so close to joining them – to finally having her family – and it had been denied to her.  Everything she’d done and she wasn’t allowed peace.

“I miss you,” she chokes through the tears. “I miss you both so damn much.”


	3. The One Where She Says Goodbye

Calliope sits at one of the table in Gary’s.  She’s half listening to Angela chattering away and half reading the incredibly battered copy of ‘On The Road’ that Butch found in an abandoned house.  Over the top of her book she can see Butch at the Supply.  He told her needed to some repairs to his rifle.  Currently he seems to be trying to get Seagrave to give him a very full wad of duct tape for some sensor modules and scrap metal.  It’s not a great trade if Butch throws in a free haircut it might just do it.  When he looks over at her Calliope mimes scissors near where her hair used to sit.  Her mood sours slightly at the sudden reminder.  For a moment she felt pleasantly normal.  But, with that small movement Calliope is rocketed back to reality.  She can feel Rivet City’s eyes on her.  It makes her skin crawl.

Angela seems to notice Calliope’s mood change.  As does Butch who almost starts towards her but Calliope shakes her head at him.  Hurriedly she tucks the scrap of paper she had been using as a bookmark back in the book and nods a short goodbye at Angela.  Ignoring the sudden sick feeling her stomach Calliope weaves through the market place to the nearest entrance into the ship’s belly.  The dim lighting consumes her.  It calms her, the flickering lights somehow bringing her comfort in a world that felt too sharp.  She goes the short way to the Muddy Rudder, wanting to avoid the exposure as much as possible.  She may have survived death but it doesn’t feel like she’ll survive living with that fact.

 _‘Easy Living’_ is playing from the Radio in the Muddy Rudder and it makes Calliope want to laugh.  How fucking ironic that she breaks down to that song.  Especially since the only person that makes her feel like the lyrics could possibly be true is levels away.

An hour later her skin has stopped crawling and she no longer feels like someone is drilling into her head.  That’s when Butch walks into their room.  He dumps his stuff, newly repaired rifle included, at the end of the bed before plopping down on the bed beside Calliope’s feet.  As he moves her so her feet are on his lap Calliope just turns the page in her book.  Reading has always calmed her, even more so now it would seem.

“You okay?” Butch says after a brief moment.  Calliope nods. “Two guys from out West arrived today.”

He pauses after the statement, gauging her reaction.  Wordlessly Calliope sets the book on her lap, her right hand settled in it marking her place.

“They said they were from some place called the Hub, I didn’t recognise the name either.  I sat down with them in Gary’s and they told me about how they’ve rebuilt in the West.  There’s this thing called the NCR – New California Republic.  They’re making actual society.  They have actual money.”

Butch brandishes a paper note for effect.  A small smile spreads over his face as Calliope leans forward and takes it out of his hand.  She holds it up to the flickering light, examining it. 

“Actually they told me they’ve been across the country.  We ain’t the only ones alive.  Boston is in a shitty state, they’re doing worse than us.  New York is apparently half in this thing called ‘The Glowing Sea’ and half filled with ferals.  But they ain’t only places.”

He produces another thing from his pocket.  A piece of fabric this time.  Without hesitation Calliope takes it.  Once she unfolds it she finds a crudely drawn map of America.  She knows because of the title but also there had been a proper one in the Vault.  She’d spend hours poring over it, tracing routes with her finger.  There’s a simple key in the corner, dots for pre-war cities, crosses for post-war civilisation.  The West coast is filled with crosses, some over dots most not.  The route the guys Butch spoke to took is scratched across it in charcoal.  Calliope traces it with her finger.  Butch leans towards her, pointing at one of the dots that also has a cross.  Childlike wonder fills his face.

“That’s Denver.  They told me how the streets are filled with all sorts of nasties but the skyscrapers are still standing so the people living there built bridges to get around.”

Calliope thinks about how Megaton built itself around a live bomb because it exposed ground water. Or Little Lamplight and how they’ve managed to survive so long by getting rid of the people that caused the problems. Or Underworld, a society of outcasts making it work.

“Life finds a way,” she breathes. She doesn’t miss the way Butch’s shoulders relax when she speaks.

“We can leave, travel, find the place we’re meant to be.” Calliope has the sudden urge to kiss him. Sure she’s felt that urge before but this is strongest. He’s sitting there with a hopeful smile on his face and he knows how much this means to her. He can see how being here is killing her again. Before replying she thumbs at the pages of her book for a second.

“Okay.”

*****

Despite how attractive just taking off seems there are some people who need goodbyes.  Some who deserve them.

They leave Rivet city before dawn, packing everything that means anything in their rucksacks.  Belle Bonny is stood on the near side of the bar in a tatty dressing gown.  There’s a cigarette drooping gracefully in between her two of her fingers.  She smiles a sad smile at the two of them.  Wordlessly she bundles them each into a hug.  Calliope first because to Belle she’s never been anything more than a young girl.  Then onto Butch.  His lasts longer.  Whispered words, ones Calliope does not try to hear, are exchanged before they pull apart.

“I’ll miss you kids,” Belle says.  Then she grasps Butch’s hand one more time and ducks back to bed.

Butch takes Calliope’s hand as they sneak off Rivet City.  There’s no one around, the corridors are empty except for the sound of Butch’s heavy footsteps.  He still hasn’t learnt to move silently.  Harkness is stood beside the bridge.  Once again the thought of how he never sleeps crosses Calliope’s mind.  He just nods a good bye to them both.  This time he doesn’t try to give Calliope the hunting knife.  Although she does see his hand twitch towards it.

Brazenly they walk through the DC ruins.  It’s not like they can hurt them now.  There’s nothing waiting around corners except brotherhood soldiers.  Butch’s rifle is kept stays in its holster on the side of his rucksack.  The side furthest from Calliope.

The Mall is silent.   Butch’s Pipboy says that it’s five am.  Dawn’s lazy paint brush is only just beginning to colour the edges of the sky.  With Butch beside her the purples and pinks don’t seem as bitter as they did two weeks ago.

Their first stop is Underworld.  As they push open the doors to the Museum they come face to face with Willow.  The ghoul looks like she’s freshly woken up but the sleep fades from her face upon seeing Calliope.

“You’re not dead?”  Calliope feels like she’s going to get that a lot.  A statement that she can’t wait to leave behind. Butch gives a terse smile to Willow before taking Calliope’s hand.  Often Calliope thinks that Butch hates the reminders more than she does.  After all he had to live through her death while she got to be dead. 

Willow lets them pass.  Calliope can feel her eyes on her until they are stepping through the doors into Underworld.  Inside it’s the same as always.  Except this time the ghouls very pointedly don’t look at them.  Before a smoothskin would cause stares – dirty looks in some cases.  Now no-one looks at her.

Trying to shake off the niggling in the back of her mind Calliope walks to Carol’s.  Where Butch used to break off and do his own thing he stays by her side.  He does that a lot more now.  Calliope’s still not sure how she feels about that.  The word weird pops into her mind.  When they reach Carol’s the place’s namesake is waiting for them.  Someone must have raced ahead upon seeing them enter the place.  Before Calliope can muster a pathetic ‘hi’, Carol scoops her into a deep hug.

“You’re okay,” She says into Calliope’s hair.  Carol’s hands rub her back.  It’s so extremely motherly, a lump appears in Calliope’s throat at the thought.

Inside Carol’s is so close to normal.  It’s loud and happy, the lights here are nicer than the ones in Rivet City.  They have warm yellow tinge, not the cold military blue of the ship.  It makes Calliope feel warm.  They sit in a corner with Carol and Greta.  Butch’s arm hangs casually over the back of Calliope’s chair.  Greta’s eyes followed the movement like a hawk when Butch first did it.  Calliope remember how she didn’t like him in the beginning.  How when she’d first brought him by underworld Greta watched him for any missteps.   Her distrusting eyes glued one every movement.   Her ears straining for every word.  But a as Greta looks at the arm a small – barely perceptible – smile plays around her lips. 

Later, when Butch and Calliope are about to leave, Greta takes Butch aside.  While the talk, Butch’s cheeks are something close to a blush, Carol turns to Calliope.

“This a final goodbye?” She asks.  Calliope nods.  Carols does too.  She reaches behind the counter and lifts a dusty brown bottle.  “I kept thinking about drinking this but for some reason I couldn’t.  Figure you should have it.  Drink it when you get to your destination.  Remember us.”

Once again Calliope nods.  As Butch returns to her side Carols pulls her in for a final hug.

*****

It’s dusk when they make it to Arefu, they took the long way.  Coming back now is so different from the first time Calliope arrived.  First off she had been approaching from the other side of the bridge that time.  But most of all on Calliope's first visit to Arefu she was fresh out the Vault.  She’d taken Lucy West’s letter because she’d wanted to make some good in what seemed like Hell at the time.  Looking at the small collection of houses now she thinks she succeeded.

Evan is sat outside his house as they walk through.  A cigarette droops from his mouth, he just stares at them.  Calliope averts her eyes.  They quicken their pace towards the abandoned house.

Once inside the house Butch carefully places his rifle on the table and shrugs off his rucksack.  Following his lead Calliope tucks her bag under the table.  She sits on the bed, toeing off her boots.  Butch is organising his things while she shimmies out of her jeans.  She folds them and places them neatly on the broken shelves.  Then she pulls the holey blanket over herself.  She’s curled up facing the wall when Butch joins her.  His body curls around her, the fabric of his boxers presses against the top of her thighs.  Unthinkingly she snuggles back into him, trying to find his warmth and comfort.  A small sound escapes his throat.  Calliope smiles, just a little.  It might be the first genuine one she’s done since waking up.

Butch wakes up to find his body curled around cool, empty space.  For a second his heart stops beating and he thinks he’s somehow lost her again.  But then he hears a creaking above him.  He pulls on his trousers.  Then his shoes.  Then after a moment’s hesitation the thick jacket he’s taken to wearing around the wastes.  And then he pushes out into the morning.

He walks backwards from the door until he can see Calliope sitting on the shack’s roof.  She looks at him a moment before beckoning him up.  Shaking his head Butch jogs back to the house.  It takes him a minute to work out how to get to her, once he finds the way it seems obvious.

“Dawn’s coming,” Calliope says once he’s settled beside her.  She leans back into him.  Her eyes never leave the horizon.

Dawn breaks.  The sky looks like a water colour, the night’s blue bleeds into purple.  The purple bleeds into pink, into orange, into yellow.  The colours are muted.  It isn’t the most spectacular sky Butch has seen since leaving the vault.  There was one, right after he and Calliope had found each other, it was the sunset and the sky looked like it was on fire.

But Calliope is captivated and that’s what makes it more beautiful.

“I used to do this a lot, before I had you.  I would always wake up before dawn and climb to the highest place I could to watch the sunrise.  This place was my favourite.  I liked what the sunrise symbolised.”  Butch thinks it’s the most he’s heard Calliope say since she woke up.  She doesn’t look at him – too engrossed in the sky above them – but he can’t take his eyes off of her.  The way the sky’s hues illuminate her skin, illuminating freckles that usually fade into her complexion.  Her eyes are clear and focused, the sunlight making them something more than brown.  She’s smiling.

*****

Dusty lowers his gun when they approach the bridge into Bigtown.  Calliope has to squint but she thinks there’s a smile on his face.

“Oi! Guys, it’s them,” he calls back into the small collection of shacks.  Kimba and Flash, who were sat out in the square, look over at the noise.  Butch gives a wave.  There’s a moment where they just stare at Calliope and Butch before rushing off to the house to tell the others.  Dusty gives Butch a handshake then turns to Calliope.  Under his helmet there’s a slight blush creeping across his cheeks.  He does an awkward little bow that make Butch laugh a little while Calliope bites her lip.

So it goes, the inhabitants of Bigtown greet them.  They drag the two of them into the square, setting up makeshift seats around the camp fire.  Red takes Calliope’s hand and moves them to the far side of the fire, away from everyone else.  She gives Calliope a dust marked bottle with no label.

“Moonshine,” she explains after bringing out one for herself.  They toast to survival.  Calliope remembers the first time she stayed in Bigtown.  It was before Butch.  She’d saved Red – scared shitless the whole time – and Red had convinced her to stay a while.  Together they’d saved Timebomb and then they’d collapsed on a worn out sofa and drank.  Calliope had been more talkative then.  Red hadn’t. 

Through the flames Calliope watches Butch and the others.  Every so often his eyes flick to her, but other than that his focus is on the people directly surrounding him.  He shines brightly.  Brighter than Calliope has seen since she woke up.  The thought crosses her mind that she’s the one dimming him.  All her broken parts eclipsing the way the wasteland has made him the sun. She takes a deep drink of the Moonshine, trying to burn away the creeping guilt. 

The day stretches into night and they move into the clubhouse.  Calliope doesn’t sit next to Butch, if he cares he doesn’t say anything. Instead she pulls out a bottle of whiskey she found lying around Butch’s room in the muddy rudder, walks with Red to a far sofa and begins to pass it between them.  Awfulness wells up in Calliope as she watches how close Bittercup sits to Butch.  The admiration in her eyes.  She recognises the moves from the vault.  Amata and her used to sit in the diner, watching Susie Mack in the exact same position.  Only difference is the lighting in the wasteland doesn’t give you headaches and back then Calliope wasn’t jealous.  Right now she’s drunk enough to admit she’s jealous.  All she can think about is whether or not anything happened when she… when she died.  Not that anything couldn’t happen now.  After all this is their last goodbye and it’s not like she and Butch are anything outside of Calliope’s mind.  She just thought – not that it matters.

Calliope downs the rest of the whiskey, picks up her bag, says good night to Red and walks outside.  The wasteland air is cool and refreshing on her face.  It’s only the beginning of September, she’d checked Butch’s Pipboy before they left Rivet City, but the nights are already closing in.  Ignoring the chill that goes through her body Calliope strides across the square to the Common House.  It’s where she’d slept every time she’d stayed in Bigtown before.  Why break tradition the last time? 

The Common House is mercifully silent when Calliope steps through the door. She dumps her bag at the end of the closest bed and flicks on the radio.  She may love silence but she cannot stand it for too long.  Her mind is too loud.  A slow song is playing.  For a moment Calliope just listens, swaying along to the jazzy music.  Behind her the door creaks open and she stills.

“You okay?” Butch asks.  Calliope snaps out of her trance, the music fading to the background of her mind.  As she turns to face him she folds her arms, pulling them tightly to her and gripping her elbows.

“Fine,” she says shortly.  Butch sighs.  He rubs his forehead for a moment before running a hand through his hair.  Silence falls between them, not the comfortable one they’re both so used to, as Butch looks at her.  Exasperation is clear on his face.  It’s obvious now, he isn’t the sun when he’s with her.  Calliope sees herself exhausting him.  He’ll resent her and Calliope doesn’t think she can handle that.  She could handle anything except him beginning to hate her.

“Why are you here?” Calliope doesn’t know if she means in the room or with her in general.  Butch continues to stare at her, he’s trying to work what she means as much as she is.

“For you.”  A breath sags out of Calliope. It’s the answer she knew she was going to get.  “What?”

“You deserve better than to be my keeper.  You’ll wake up and realise you’re leaving a life behind for me and hate me.”

“I already done it once.”

“That’s different.  There was more to that decision and I was a better me.  I’m not worth it anymore.”

“Yes you are.”  Butch steps towards her.  He takes her face in his hands, forcing her to look at him. “You’re not worse, you’re just different.  I would follow you through hell and back, Danvers, ain’t nobody gonna tell me you ain’t worth it.”

“I don’t want you to hate me.”  There’s a sob in her voice because her doubt cuts through the finality in Butch’s voice.

“I never have and I ain’t going to start doing it now.”  Calliope stares at him.  God does that sound like a confession of some sort.  But her brain is addled by emotions, suspect moonshine and really old whiskey.   For a moment she leans into his hands, they’re so warm and comforting.  But a wind whips against the walls off the house.  Battering against the fragile door and windows. It snaps Calliope from the trance of Butch’s words.  She steps out of his hands, moving towards the bed she normally takes.  Butch watches but makes no move towards her.  Once her boots are off she lies down.  He doesn’t join her, instead he sits down on the other side of the room.  It’s like he’s taking watch, like he thinks they’re in danger.  The only danger in Bigtown – Calliope thinks – is her.

*****

Silence hangs heavy in the cold air as they walk to Megaton.  It’s nothing new.  In the vault they’d been good at silence and now Calliope doesn’t have anything to say.  Her mind is always too loud for conversation.  Stockholm waves as they approach.  Butch raises his hand, after a second Calliope does too.  They didn’t look at her differently when she diffused their bomb, why would they do it now.  They’ve seen her drunk in Moriarty’s, dancing with a very confused Gob to Bob Crosby.

Lucas Simms is waiting for them when they walk through the gates.  He shakes Butch’s hand, then hers, and welcomes them back.  Nothing new.  Calliope breathes a sigh of relief as they move away.  In her head she knew that Megaton would not stare the way Rivet City did.  She wouldn’t have whispers following her constantly.  People don’t look at her as they walk to their house.  Or they do.  But it’s not like Rivet City and Underworld.  Here it’s just because she catches their gaze.  When they do look there are smiles of greeting and then eyes flick away.  They don’t stare.  It feels freeing to Calliope.  Like those first steps away from the Citadel after waking up.  She doesn’t smile but it feels like maybe she could.  Like it’s a step closer.

Wadsworth is waiting for them when they walk into their house.  He’s happily floating downstairs, next to the bobble head stand.  He seems happy to see them.  If robots can feel happy that is.  Aside from that the house hasn’t really change.  Butch has made no mark on it.  It’s exactly as she left it.  That was the far side of three months ago.

“It’s so good to see you ma’am,” Wadsworth says, flying over to them.  He whirs slightly louder than before.  Calliope knows that it’s because Butch doesn’t know how to maintenance him.  It used to be a ritual she did almost every week.  Early on in their time together Butch used to go to Moriarty’s while she did it.  But the last time – just before vault 87 and everything going to shit – he’d sat and watched.  They’d gone to Moriarty’s afterwards, together.  With that observation comes the realisation that her fingers itch for something to do.  Her little toolkit sits in the bottom of her rucksack, one of the few things in there. 

She nods at Wadsworth before ushering him towards the little work bench she’d set up in one corner when she first got the house.  Wadsworth makes a grateful noise before powering down on the work bench.  While Calliope methodically sets out her tools, Butch slumps into the broken couch.  It hadn’t been there when Simms gave her the place.  She’d gotten Moriarty to spare Gob for an afternoon, he’d helped her commandeer a battered couch from Springvale and they’d lugged it back to Megaton together.

It’s soothing to fiddle with Wadsworth’s inner workings.  The familiarity of metal at her finger tips and the way the screwdriver feels in her hands reminds her of before.  Butch waits patiently for her to finish and power up the robot.  But she works slowly, methodically.  Like the longer she does it the closer she gets to _something_.  She doesn’t know what but it feels better than nothing.  Eventually, as Butch places a can of pork ‘n’ beans beside the row of tools, Calliope take her hands out of Wadsworth.

“You can go somewhere else,” she says, taking the spoon Butch offers her and sitting on the floor to eat.

“I’m fine here,” Butch replies.  Calliope looks at him skeptically, he raises his hands at her and says, “I like watching you work.”

Calliope sighs.  Once she’s eaten some food, with Butch watching to make sure, she goes back to work.  Now she works at her normal pace, overly conscious of Butch’s eye son her and the inconvenience she could be causing.

When she powers up Wadsworth his motors are noticeably quieter.  He thanks Calliope and if robots could smile she guesses that he would.  Behind her Butch hefts himself off the sofa, rubbing his eyes.   From the looks of him, and the sounds he was making, it’s easy to surmise that he fell asleep.  In the back of her mind Calliope thinks it’s cute, but that’s a small quiet part she keeps trying to silence.

Moriarty’s is loud.  A contrast to the silence that she’s become used to.  They’ve got the radio blaring – Calliope fixed it up in exchange for caps the day before she’d returned to the vault.  Right now some up beat song is playing.  Gob looks up, a smile breaking across his face when he sees her.  He nods her over to the bar.  Butch breaks away as Calliope moves towards the ghoul.  They didn’t get on before, she gets the feeling it only got worse after the purifier.  She takes the stool that she always takes her and Gob hands her a Nuka Cola.  It’s perfectly, comfortably familiar.    Gob keeps looking at her while he wipes the counter.  It never gets cleaner but Moriarty would have his head if he didn’t do it.  He makes idle conversation and Calliope feels so close to normal.  She can’t see Butch, she knows he’s nearby, somehow that makes it better.  Like the fact he isn’t hovering around her, ready to catch her if she breaks, helps.

The Bob Crosby song she and Gob danced to, months ago now, flickers on.  Subtly Gob turns the dial up slightly louder.  When he next catches her eye Calliope smiles a little.  It’s a small thing but Gob’s smile widens.  Before the purifier they were friends – no matter how much other people were confused by it.  Now there’s a deeper bond.  They’re both made of broken pieces, stitched together slightly wrong.  Maybe in another life she’s not too broken to stay.  In that life she’s not been slowly falling in love with the same boy since he found her hiding behind the generators with a bottle of stolen liquor.  Like he knows what she’s thinking Gob spares her sad smile, his eyes flicking to where Nova stands.  There’s cigarette drooping from her mouth along with the smirk that always appears when Billy Creel tries to barter with her.  She’s not the only one who fell for the wrong person.

The night draws on, Gob switches her cola for some sort of alcohol.  As Three Dog signs off for the night – because now that the ‘government’ has been defeated a 24 hour news feed isn’t necessary – the radio is flicked off and Butch appears beside her.  His familiar scent washes over Calliope as he sits down beside her.  Gob grimaces at him, Butch just nods in reply.  Without thinking Calliope leans her head onto Butch’s shoulder.  His arm comes up to her waist, resting lightly around her.

“You wanna go?” He says in her hair.

Calliope shakes her head slightly, “not yet.”

Eventually Calliope and Butch are the last people in the bar except Gob and Nova.  Moriarty went to bed an hour before.  His posture was slightly hunched and he refused to look at Butch.  Upon seeing that Calliope squeezes Butch’s hand a little.  No-one else is going to thank him.  Nova sits on top of the counter, one hand playing with what’s left of Gob’s hair, while the ghoul remains in his usual position across the bar.

“Good for you,” Nova breathes when Butch finishes telling her what they’re doing.  Calliope just looks at Gob.  He stopped wiping the counter when Moriarty left but as Butch explained the plan he picked up the cloth again.  Now he’s refusing to look at her.  Calliope’s put a hand over his, stilling the cleaning.

“I’ll miss you,” she says.  Finally he looks at her.  There are almost tears in his eyes.

“You were the first and best friend I ever had, smoothskin.” Calliope lets out a sad laugh at the name.  Then she stands from the stool, reaches over the counter, and hugs him.  For a second he is stunned then he leans into it.

They leave soon after, with one last goodbye Calliope and Butch go back to their house.  They’ll give Simms the key in the morning and disappear.

*****

The hillside Vault 101 sits on it silent as Butch and Calliope trudge up it.  Wind whips around them.  Calliope pulls Butch’s tunnel snake jacket tighter around herself. They go through the small door.  Some has cleared the skeletons and their signs out.  Must not be a pretty sight every time you leave to trade or something.  Not fun to constantly be reminded of your people’s worst act.

They stand in front of the key pad.  Calliope debates trying the code by she knows Amata will have changed it.  She’s not so desperate to get in as to try to hack it.  This isn’t a visit, it’s a goodbye.  No matter what they did, how they treated her the people in the vault raised her.  They deserve a goodbye.  So she stands back a step, in full view of the cameras.  Butch stands beside her.  Briefly she wonders if he would rather just go back in.  Leave her and her broken pieces to fend for themselves.  But then he takes her hand and waves at the camera.  Calliope looks at him and he’s looking back at her.  He’s go this look on his face the Calliope’s too much of a coward to name.

“You and me, nosebleed –” a half laugh escapes Calliope at the old nickname – “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

Calliope stares at him for second and she thinks she might cry.  He’s told her that so many times.  But now, as the option of going home is close enough to touch, she finally believes him.

Once they’re out of the cave she catches his hand, tugging him back towards her.  Once he’s face to face Calliope takes his hand.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ve been terrible.”  Butch smiles softly at her.

“You’re allowed to be.”  He places a kiss on her forehead, so softly it’s barely there.  Then he leans his forehead to hers.  They’re a breath away from kissing and it would be so easy to just do it.  But Calliope’s not ready.  She’s better but not yet whole.  When she kisses him she wants to be whole.

So they stay like that for a moment, so close.  But when the moment passes they break apart.  They hitch their bags higher on their shoulders and walk.

*****

Calliope and Butch stand on a hill looking east – back where they’ve come from.  To the south they can see a doll’s house version of Tenpenny tower.  Somewhere not that nearby is the sound of any explosion.  It’ll be one of the few raider gangs left trying and failing to kill someone.  If they couldn’t kill Calliope when she was fresh out the vault, they can’t kill the Brotherhood.  Reaching across Butch she flicks on his Pipboy’s radio.  The beginnings of a song is crackling at the edges.  For a second they stand and listen.  In the goodbye the Capital Wasteland almost seems peaceful.

“ _Don't know why I left the homestead I really must confess…_ ” Butch turns the radio off.  He offers Calliope his hand.  Without hesitation she takes it. His grasp is warm against hers.  With one last look – a goodbye – the turn away.  Then they begin to walk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a long and hard chapter to write. I started it in early July. It's more words than the last two chapters put together. But I'm happy with it, it's something that I've been thinking about (if not planning) since I created Calliope.   
> I hope you liked it and please leave a comment or kudos if you did :)


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